Guelder rose

Value to bees

Nectar

High

Pollen

Moderate

As a honey crop

Feeds the colony but rarely yields a surplus

Which bees, and why

Worked by small solitary bees, hoverflies and beetles as much as by honey bees. The flat head of tiny open florets is a landing platform, and the sterile ring exists solely to make it visible from a distance.

Tiny fully open fertile florets with exposed nectar — accessible to the smallest insects.

Worth knowing

Good accessible nectar in early summer, and a useful lesson in reading a flower — most of what you can see is advertising rather than reward.

Flowering

In flower

May to July (northern hemisphere)

Four to six weeks in early summer, after the hawthorn.

When nectar flows

Good nectar from the small fertile central florets, freely accessible. The showy outer ring produces nothing at all.

Year-to-year variation

Reliable and modest.

Growing it

Conditions

Sun or part shade, moist soil. It prefers damp ground and tolerates heavy clay.

Size

2-4 m.

Native range

Europe, North Africa and central Asia, in damp woodland and hedgerow.

Suits

Hedgerow, Large gardens, Small gardens

• Plant the wild species, not the 'Roseum' snowball form — that cultivar is entirely sterile flowers and offers nothing to any insect.
• Excellent native hedgerow shrub with spring flowers, autumn colour and winter berries.
• The berries persist into winter because birds take them late, which makes it useful in hard weather.

What it looks like

A spreading shrub with three-lobed maple-like leaves and flat white flower heads ringed by large sterile florets, followed by translucent red berries and good autumn colour.